Weekend Wrap

Top of the mornin' to ya!  OK, that's enough Irish stuff.  Sure, it's St. Patrick's Day, but all that means is that there are teams out there that decide, "Hey, you know what?  We have no green in our color scheme, but wouldn't it be cool to have green uniforms for St. Patty's?"  And then you get debacles like this.  And this.  And, most tragically, this.

So did anything interesting happen this weekend?  There's definitely news.  First off, the Cardinals beat up on Johan Santana again.  Another strong game out of Brian Barton.  2-4 with 2 RBI.  Matthew Leach has him on the his last roster guess and I have to totally agree.  There's no way that the team can risk him being offered back to Cleveland.  And with the way he's going this spring, I don't think Cleveland would be much inclined to let the Cards trade for his rights.  Besides, with Juan Gonzalez losing a week due to injury, his major competition eliminated itself.

Ludwick, Molina and Ryan all had two hits in the game as well.  Both of Molina's hits were doubles (one off of Santana) giving some hope that last year's improvement at the bat was not a mirage.  Getting some offense out of the catcher position will be pretty important this year.

The pitching did all right.  Wainwright went five, gave up a couple of runs and had three strikeouts.  He looks ready for the season.  Thompson gave up a run, but that was about it.

Troy Glaus, however, had a rough day.  0-4 with three strikeouts.  I think we'll see a few of those kind of days from Glaus during the season, but hopefully 2-4 with a HR days will counteract that more often than not.

Sunday, I got to see my first Cardinal game of the year as it was on TV down here.  I didn't get to see much of it--there were technical problems at the beginning and I had to go somewhere at the end--but it was great to see the red on TV and baseball being played.  Too bad they couldn't pull out a win.

Box score gazing at that one a 2-4 day for Ankiel, getting his spring average to .372, Kennedy going 2-3 for a .351 average and.....

Wait.  Back up.  Adam Kennedy?  Second baseman guy?  .351?  REALLY?

It appears that Kennedy is making some progress, which is great.  Cardinal fans pretty much knew he couldn't be as worthless as he was last season two years in a row.  (Didn't we?) So when you factor in the bounce in offense that an improved Kennedy can bring, this lineup could be pretty formidable.  I mean, he's not going to hit .351 in the season, but anything is better than last year.

Anyway, back to the box score.  Wellemeyer was, well, what you'd expect from a fifth starter (3 runs, five innings, two HR allowed).  Could have been much worse.  From what I read, Chris Perez probably won't go north with the team.  However, his spring line isn't the reason.  He threw two innings, gave up no hits and lowered his ERA to 1.29.  He didn't strike anyone out, though.  Don't know if the team thinks he won't miss enough bats in the majors or what.

Other items:

Izzy's got a pain in the back.  I don't think it's a major deal, but you do get the whole "Cardinals and injuries" bit in there.  Still, as long it's not related to the hip, I think he'll be fine.

Duncan is trying to figure out what's wrong.   An 0-21 will do that to a person.  I hope that the Cardinals don't regret not moving him for young pitching in the offseason.  I feel like Duncan's window isn't all that large and the Cardinals should have taken advantage of it--or should, if he starts off strong and they need to make room for Rasmus.

The Voch Report from Bird Land.   Some neat stuff about George Kissell and some interesting results from the back lots.  I think it could be a great season to watch the minors.  I'm sure Future Redbirds agrees with me.

Cards try Atlanta again with Anthony Reyes on the mound.  Reyes is the subject of our first UCB roundtable (going on now via e-mail).  You should be able to read that tomorrow at Redbird Ramblings.


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